Help or Hurt: Week 11
Mike D
When you are a good team, bye weeks can be fun. Your team gets healthy for the remainder of the season, and like Buffalo did, you can increase your lead on teams without having to break a sweat. So lets see what happened around the league this weekend, and how beneficial/detrimental any of the games were to our season. Lets start with what helped us:
Helped
Big goose egg in the division- Most notably, the Miami Dolphins lose to the Denver Broncos 20-13. Tua Tagovailoa went 11-20 for 83 yards and a touchdown. He was eventually benched and replaced by Ryan Fitzpatrick. This is huge for the Bills, as the Dolphins are the only team in the division that has a realistic chance of contending for the AFC East title. Oh, and in lesser news, New England lost to Houston, and the Chargers beat the Jets.
Hurt
Pittsburgh remains undefeated- Even though I believe the Chiefs are the best team in the league, Pittsburgh has the best record in the NFL. And with a Covid riddled Baltimore team, and a Alex Smith lead Washington Football Team coming to town the next 2 weeks, its a great chance Pittsburgh will be 12-0 when they play Buffalo. In Orchard Park. On Sunday. At Night. With Collinsworth and AL FREAKIN MICHAELS calling the game. You’re Welcome.
Cleveland beats Philly- I have Baker Mayfield and Carson Wentz on my fantasy team. Probably why I’m 3-7.
Comeback Colts- In this episode of the AARP bowl, Philip Rivers and the Colts beat Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers 34-31 in OT. A big day from Aaron Rodgers (27-38, 311 yds, 3TD-1int) wasn’t enough to overcome the 4 turnovers the team had (3fum and 1int). Keep an eye out for Indianapolis, they are a good football team, that is well coached, and has a future HoF Quarterback.
Andy Reid improves to 19-3 after a bye- The Chiefs are lucky that the Raiders aren’t in the NFC. I’m not sure what it is, but they play Kansas City tougher than any other team currently in the NFL. In the 2 games vs Kansas City, Derek Carr has a 72.6 comp%, 622 pass yds and 6 pass TD. If Las Vegas makes the playoffs and see Kansas City again, maybe we’ll have a “3rd times the charm” situation on our hands.
If the playoffs started today…
All in all, if the playoffs started today, Buffalo would host Cleveland in Orchard Park (if this happened, then 2020 is officially the year that had it all). After being in disbelief for 15 minutes, I realized that I do not hate this matchup for the Bills. Even though Cleveland strength is the running game, and our weakness is stopping the run, they only average 24ppg. Josh Allen would be the far better QB on the field that day vs Baker Mayfield (and his 100 different commercials), and I don’t believe they would be able to keep up. So let’s hope this is matchup comes true, because if so, Divisional round here we come!